Unexpected Thanks
by Marcus S. Lazarus
Summary: -SPOILERS FOR 'BIG BANG'- A few unexpected guests drop in to Amy's wedding to express their thanks for her role in saving them


Disclaimer: I don't own anyone you recognise; the drill is well-known by know

Feedback: If you wish

AN: Just an amusing little one-shot I had an idea for, set just after the Doctor's materialised at Amy and Rory's wedding at the conclusion of "The Big Bang"; it just seemed to me that, if Amy's memories served to restore the Doctor's history _completely_- including the bits she _didn't _know about-, it seemed only fair for her to be thanked by all of them for what she'd done for them

Unexpected Thanks

"Right then everyone," the Doctor said, turning to look at the various guests- including Amy's restored parents; good to know _that _bit had worked out smoothly, anyway- with a casual smile, "I'll move my box; you're going to need the space."

As he ran into the TARDIS, already calculating the best new location- Amy's garden, most likely; back where it all began-, he smiled as he leaned back out. "I only came for the dancing."

No sooner had he shut the door, however, then the familiar sound of materialisation filled the room, before he had so much as taken a step towards the controls. For a moment, the Doctor wondered if whatever had triggered the TARDIS's original explosion was about to try to do it again- he still didn't know what that was all about, after all-, but then he sensed the familiar feeling of the hair on the back of his neck standing up, and he groaned silently.

"Oh," he said, stepping out of the TARDIS once again in time to see ten other police boxes, each slightly different from the next, materialising around the hall.

"Uh... Doctor?" Rory asked, looking uncertainly at the Time Lord. "Are... are these...?"

"My past," the Doctor said, shrugging slightly as he turned to smile awkwardly at Amy. "Sorry about that, but it looks like the rest of me were 'compelled' to come here too..."

"The 'rest of you'?" Amy repeated in confusion. "What-?"

Before she could finish that sentence, the police boxes solidified into reality, the doors opening almost simultaneously as ten men leant out of them, taking in their surroundings.

"What in the _world_-?" the fair-haired man in the almost rainbow-coloured patchwork coat asked, looking incredulously at his surroundings.

"If it's any consolation, old chap, I'm as confused as you are," the white-haired man in velvet and frills said, looking sympathetically over at him- the Doctor noted that at least they seemed to have landed in a random order; the last thing he wanted was to start wondering if there was some higher intelligence at work in bringing everyone together like this rather than just the bad luck he was sure was responsible- as he turned to look at the rest. "Is everyone all right?"

"Oh, I'm perfectly fine at the moment, thank you, Doctor," the man in the long scarf replied, smiling warmly at the people around him. "Although, if we're discussing our well-being, was it only me, or did all you just experience-?"

"A moment of unusual existential uncertainty?" the brown-haired man in velvet said, nodding at the other man. "Yes, I did; at the time I thought it was just a side-effect of that mess with the Eye of Harmony, but I take it the rest of you did also?"

"To say the least," the little man carrying an umbrella with a thick red question-mark for a handle said in a distinctly Scottish accent. "I haven't felt that confused about who I was since that mess with the Silurians..."

"Quite, my boy," the old man said, looking over at the short man with a pointed stare before his gaze turned to the Doctor. "I take it you are the one we should hold responsible for this, young fellow?"

"Who, me?" the Doctor asked, smiling at the face he'd been born with- he might have been a bit crotchety back then, but it was true what they said; you never _quite _forgot what you started with- as he indicated his surroundings. "Everyone in this room, and it's _automatically_-"

"Oh my God..." Amy whispered, the Doctor turning around in time to see her gaze settle on the man in the brown pinstripe suit that he'd been only a few short months ago.

"What?" the slightly younger Time Lord asked, looking at her quizzically.

"Oh my God..." Amy said again, her gaze flicking between him and the Doctor.

"What?" his tenth incarnation repeated )The Doctor wished he could explain this, but he had a feeling that it was something Amy would prefer to settle for herself).

"Oh my _God_..." Amy said for a third time, before she hurried over to him and practically yanked his suit jacket off- prompting a confused and indignant "Hey!" from his past self- before she pulled out the right side of his shirt and left it to hang down over his trousers, stepping back to study the resulting effect in greater detail.

It didn't take long for the Doctor to realise what Amy had done; add in the necessary rips and tears to his past self's shirt and trousers, and he was obviously wearing the clothing of Amy's 'Raggedy Doctor'.

"He's... he's _you_..." she said, looking back at the Doctor in stunned confusion.

"Well, I _was _him... or he will be me, depending on how you look at it; it's all a bit complicated and it involves something that happens when I die-" the Doctor began.

"Sorry, but for those of us who _don't _know what's going on here, could someone explain what this is all about?" the man in the leather jacket put in, shooting a brief glare at the man with the scarf and the brown-haired one in velvet before he looked back at the Doctor. "And what is _with _that tie?"

"Firstly, bow ties are cool," the Doctor replied, glaring briefly at his ninth body before he turned to address the rest. "As for why you're here, well, that's partly my fault; I just spent the last few hours in a state of non-existence after I triggered an explosion to restore the universe after... well, something bad happened; let's leave it at that... and I was _just _brought back to existence thanks to the memories of my friend here-", here he paused to reach over and pull Amy towards him, one arm casually draped over her shoulders while he held out the other as though presenting her to his other selves, "-Amelia Pond, the girl who waited, and the young woman without whom _none _of me would be anywhere."

"Oh, really?" a little man with grey hair in a Beatles-esque haircut and clothing that was at least two sizes too big- the overall effect was something between a clown and a hobo, in Amy's opinion- said, smiling broadly at her as he walked over to shake her hand. "In that case, thank you very much, my dear; I happen to enjoy existing."

"Yes, I'm sure we can all agree that existence is a fine thing, little fellow," the old man said, shooting the clown-hobo a brief glare before he himself shook Amy's hand. "And in that case, thank you for ensuring that we continued to possess it, my dear."

"Uh... you're welcome?" Amy said, smiling slightly bemusedly as the other eight men all walked over to shake her hand, each of them smiling at her and offering her their congratulations; the brown-haired man in velvet even gave her a brief kiss on the cheek (She noted that the one in leather took a slightly tighter grip than he actually needed to, but decided not to think too much about that; if nothing else, it probably wasn't something he'd want to discuss in public like this).

"Well, judging by the fact that you recognised this suit, I suppose I'll be the one to see you soonest, Amelia Pond," the man wearing her Raggedy Doctor's not-so-raggedy suit said, smiling warmly at her as he shrugged his jacket back on and shook her hand before he indicated the TARDIS he'd come from. "I'd stick around to talk more, but that's the problem with meeting yourself; hang around too long in some places and you run the risk of finding out things you shouldn't..."

"Which is _particularly _true in his case," the Doctor admitted, exchanging a brief apologetic smile with his immediately past self, the same fear and shame that he always felt when he met the Doctor immediately before him warring inside him, the wish to save a life warring with his natural desire to preserve his own existence...

It was never something any of them were comfortable with, quite frankly; his eighth self had nearly given into the urge during that brief meeting with his seventh self while regaining his memories, and the other Doctors sometimes wondered if that tension was the reason they could never get along in their second and third bodies...

"I'll see you in the mirror eventually, Doctor," his previous body said, waving briefly at him from the door of the TARDIS.

"You'll have a brilliant life until then, Doctor," the Doctor replied, each of them smiling to cover the discomfort inspired by this meeting before the younger man walked back inside his TARDIS, the ship subsequently fading away as the rest of the residents in the hall watched.

"Look, sorry to interrupt, but who _are _you all-?" Amy's father began, taking advantage of the momentary silence that had settled over the hall to try and get some answers about this strange turn of events (Not that the Doctor could blame him; eleven strangers showing up in police boxes wasn't something that happened that often even if it _wasn't _his daughter's wedding).

"Oh, don't worry about us, Mr Pond; we're just a few friends of a friend who aren't staying here much longer, after all," the short man with the umbrella said, smiling and briefly tipping his hat to the man in question.

"Actually, we should probably follow our own example and be off now that we've thanked your daughter," the white-haired man in velvet said, indicating his TARDIS as he looked slightly apologetically at the people around him. "No point celebrating escape from a temporal anomaly if we trigger another one, after all..."

"My thoughts precisely," the man in the patchwork coat said, turning back towards his TARDIS with a dismissive shrug (The Doctor made a mental note to apologise to Amy about that later; he'd been a bit abrupt back then, but if his now-returning memories of this meeting served that Doctor _had _just had that rather harsh goodbye from Grant...). "Well, I'll be half of you later; I must be off."

"As much as I'd like to apologise for him, he makes a good point; we really must be going now," the man in the cricket jumper said, looking apologetically at the room around them as the patchwork-clad man walked back into his TARDIS, the ship dematerialising even as the other man continued to speak. "It's been a pleasure meeting you all; I look forward to spending more time of you when I become the Doctor you'll know."

"I couldn't have said it better myself, so it's good to know that I'm still going to say it that way from my perspective," the man in the scarf said, smiling at the man in the cricket jumper as he turned to head towards his box. "Goodbye, everyone; as always, it's been very interesting to meet me... and Mrs Pond over there, of course."

"A sentiment that I'm sure we can all share," the brown-haired man in velvet said, smiling over at Amy as he followed his other selves' example and turned to head towards his TARDIS.

"Uh, actually..." Rory began, only to trail off when he noticed the Doctor looking pointedly at him, the memory of their previous conversation regarding 'Mr Pond' prompting him to remain quiet.

"Goodbye, young fellow," the old man said, pausing in the door of his police box as he turned to look at the Doctor, a slightly wistful smile on his face as he studied the man he would one day be. "Take care of ourselves."

"Always," the Doctor replied, nodding in confirmation at the old/young man he'd been back then, still so unaware of just how important he would go on to be to the rest of the universe as he grew beyond his position as a Time Lord in self-imposed exile to become a man who would hold the fate of the universe itself in his hands more than once...

As his first self's TARDIS faded away like all the others, the Doctor turned to address the hall once more, smiling awkwardly at the obviously-confused guests.

"Sorry about that, everyone," he said, mainly out of a lack of anything else to say in this situation. "Just a few... well, a few friends of mine who wanted to thank Amy for helping me out; they won't be back any time soon, I assure you."

After a moment's uncertain silence, the guests clearly confused about what had taken place even if none of them could work out the best way to ask for more information, the Doctor shrugged and clapped his hands together.

"Well, I'll just... move my box like I said I was going to, shall I?" he said, making a mental note to at least try and explain what had taken place to Amy and Rory at the least; his brief explanation of regeneration might have worked for the moment, but they deserved a fuller explanation after everything they'd been through recently.

As he hurried back into the TARDIS, the Doctor hoped that he'd just seen the last of his other selves for a while at least; having them just drop in like that was _always _slightly embarrassing, even if the stress of the situations that were responsible for it often stopped them having the time to focus on how uncomfortable it might be for some of them...

* * *

AN 2: For those curious about placements, the only important thing you need to know is that this takes place at a point when all the Doctors are travelling alone (Or, in the case of the First Doctor, who never went _anywhere _alone while the TARDIS was in its current shape, his current companions are just deeper in the TARDIS at the moment). For further canon clarification, the 'mess with the Silurians' refers to the time the Seventh Doctor visited an alternate Earth where the Third Doctor was killed by the Silurians in his first encounter with them when his old enemy the Meddling Monk tried to change history, the TARDIS crash-landing there when the Doctor was briefly convinced that he was dead. The reference to 'Grant' refers to the Sixth Doctor's companion Grant Markham, from the novels "Time of Your Life" and "Killing Ground", whom the Doctor deliberately left behind after Grant was badly injured while working on a computer that had been infected by a virus.


End file.
